Novelist Sue Townsend, best known as the author of the successful Adrian Mole series, has died, a friend of her family has told the BBC. Townsend, 68, died at home on Thursday after a short illness.
The first of her comic series, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 3/4, was published in 1982 and the eighth instalment, Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years, was released in 2009. Her other best-selling novels included The Queen and I.